And it was there, ‘on the easel,’ that ‘The Dead Child’ at last made its appearance.  During the previous week Fagerolles, whose pocket-book was full of memoranda, had resorted to all kinds of complicated bartering in order to obtain votes in Claude’s favour; but it was a difficult business, it did not tally with his other engagements, and he only met with refusals as soon as he mentioned his friend’s name.  He complained, moreover, that he could get no help from Bongrand, who did not carry a pocket-book, and who was so clumsy, too, that he spoilt the best causes by his outbursts of unseasonable frankness.  A score of times already would Fagerolles have forsaken Claude, had it not been for his obstinate desire to try his power over his colleagues by asking for the admittance of a work by Lantier, which was a reputed impossibility.  However, people should see if he wasn’t yet strong enough to force the committee into compliance with his wishes.  Moreover, perhaps from the depths of his conscience there came a cry for justice, an unconfessed feeling of respect for the man whose ideas he had stolen.

As it happened, Mazel was in a frightfully bad humour that day.  At the outset of the sitting the brigadier had come to him, saying:  ’There was a mistake yesterday, Monsieur Mazel.  A hors-concours* picture was rejected.  You know, No. 2520, a nude woman under a tree.’

  * A painting by one of those artists who, from the fact that they
    had obtained medals at previous Salons, had the right to go on
    exhibiting at long as they lived, the committee being debarred
    from rejecting their work however bad it might be.—­ED.

In fact, on the day before, this painting had been consigned to the grave amid unanimous contempt, nobody having noticed that it was the work of an old classical painter highly respected by the Institute; and the brigadier’s fright, and the amusing circumstance of a picture having thus been condemned by mistake, enlivened the younger members of the committee and made them sneer in a provoking manner.

Mazel, who detested such mishaps, which he rightly felt were disastrous for the authority of the School of Arts, made an angry gesture, and drily said: 

’Well, fish it out again, and put it among the admitted pictures.  It isn’t so surprising, there was an intolerable noise yesterday.  How can one judge anything like that at a gallop, when one can’t even obtain silence?’

He rang his bell furiously, and added: 

’Come, gentlemen, everything is ready—­a little good will, if you please.’

Unluckily, a fresh misfortune occurred as soon as the first paintings were set on the trestle.  One canvas among others attracted Mazel’s attention, so bad did he consider it, so sharp in tone as to make one’s very teeth grate.  As his sight was failing him, he leant forward to look at the signature, muttering the while:  ‘Who’s the pig—­’